Influx Of Newcomers Creates A State Of Contradictions

March 24, 1986|By Harry Straight of The Sentinel Staff

Finding out about Florida is only part of the picture of this year's elections. The other half is what it means nationally.

What politicians, pollsters and pundits are likely to find is a state of contradictory consciousness, one of slices rather than uniformity. What happens in this year's elections may not be easily applied elsewhere.

No one has pegged Florida better than author John Rothchild, whose 1985 book Up For Grabs is called a trip through time and space in the Sunshine State.

''California was the proper birthplace for Disneyland, the Olympus of our cartoon heroes, but Disney World belongs to Florida. Inside the huge compound of artificial lakes, adulterated jungles, concocted forests, and mechanical beasts, one loses one's sense of place entirely,'' he notes.

Florida is a state whose history and very purpose of being is unlike any other.

While its sister Sun Belt states of California and Texas were tamed by golddiggers and cattle barons, Florida pioneers were resort builders and real estate developers.

Since 1964, the last time Florida had an open governor's seat and U.S. Senate seat on the ballot, the state has grown from 5.7 million to 11.3 million residents. Most of those newcomers came to lie in the sun, leaving behind the snowy North or the fires of Latin American revolution.

Only 30 percent of Florida's population was born here and many live on dredged up swampland younger than retirement age. Miami Beach, for example, just recently celebrated its 65th birthday.

Some of Florida's most ubiquitous images are imports: Bermuda grass, Australian pines, flamingos from the island of Bimini.

Its diverse and concentrated pockets of imported population defy any attempt at generalization.

''Florida could be described as a collection of cities in search of a state,'' says Michael Gannon, a political science professor at the University of Florida.

Conservative Democrats rule the rural Panhandle. Its people, remnants of hardline Dixiecrats, support tight government spending and strong defense and have asharp disdain for welfare programs.

The typical Panhandle resident probably pays no property taxes because his house is worth less than the $25,000 homestead exemption.

At the other end of the peninsula is another world. In Miami's Liberty City, fewer than 20 percent of the apartments are air conditioned and blacks can't find work because they don't speak Spanish.

The Krome Avenue detention center west of Miami is home to thousands of Haitians and Cubans fighting for refugee status. And Miami's Little Havana section is home to 52 percent of the nation's Cuban-Americans.

DRUG MONEY, CONDOS AND BINGO

To the east is the downtown opulence of Brickell Avenue, where Latin American money and illegal drug profits have built an international banking empire. East across Biscayne Bay is predominantly Jewish Miami Beach, where Jews from the Northeast in the early 1930s could invest in hotels and rooming houses but couldn't stay in them because they were restricted.

Adding to this ethnic mix are the Seminole Indians to the west with their tax-free reservation bingo parlors.

Farther west to the Gulf Coast sits affluent Naples, a resort town of millionaires, golf courses and condominiums.

Up the coast is St. Petersburg, the king of the retirement communities. East of there is Tampa and further east -- at about the center of Florida -- is Orlando, with the state's major tourist attractions.

Daytona Beach, northeast of Orlando, lives off its beaches and its motor speedway. Like much of Florida, its population ebbs and flows with the season. Most Florida residents, those here 30 or more years, bemoan what has happened to their state. Yet, the newcomers -- who average about 1,000 per day -- bring a greater tolerance. If the quality of life isn't as good as it was 30 years ago, it is still better than where they came from, says Democratic pollster Bill Hamilton.

In 1974, about 51 percent of Floridians said population growth should be limited. Last year, only 37 percent agreed, Hamilton said.

In February 1985, a poll by the Survey Research Center at Florida State University found about 55 percent of those questioned believed the state was growing too fast. About 40 percent said they were satisfied with the rate.

Those responses don't show the true picture. Those living in low-growth areas generally were happy, those in high-growth areas were not.

For instance, 74 percent of Orange County residents said growth was too rapid and 35 percent said they had thought about moving because of growth- related problems.

In increasingly Hispanic Dade County, 47 percent of non-Hispanic whites said they had considered moving.

WHITE FLIGHT FROM DADE COUNTY

Dade's growth follows the state's overall patterns, but with some distinct and crucial differences. Between 1975 and 1980, Dade had more immigrants than any of Florida's 67 counties, 339,792. But it also had more people leave, 248,707.